World Youth Day, Sydney ’08
was an experience I will never
forget. It wasn’t quite the emotional
retreat I was expecting,
nor was it a party, like many other
youth-geared Christian events. At
first, this was a letdown for me, but
I realize it really makes sense. Even
though getting excited and emotional
with thousands of Catholics
from all around the world would have
been sweet, especially as a teenager,
that wasn’t quite what it was all about.
Instead, it was centered on the one
thing that makes Catholics stand out:
the Mass, the Eucharist.

During World Youth Day, which
actually lasts five days, my youth group
of 13 teens (five were my Mt. Notre
Dame classmates) and six adults from
St. Michael Parish in Sharonville, Ohio,
went to Mass almost daily. Why? It’s
what Catholics do. Not to downplay all
of the service projects and outreach
programs we participate in, but a big
part of our religion is praying, listening
and receiving graces through the
Eucharist. We do these things in large
groups to receive more graces and then
we sing so that we can “pray twice,” as
St. Augustine said.

That’s the best way for me to describe
World Youth Day in a nutshell: a series
of Masses with even more people than
normal and the pope as the celebrant.
It might not sound too special to some,
but in reality it was a very cool way to
unite with Catholics from all around the world, and as a young person today,
I’m glad I had the opportunity to experience
it!

On Saturday, July 12, 2008, our youth
group gathered at church for an 8:30
a.m. special prayer service. Our bright
pink t-shirts (yes, even the guys wore
them) with their WYD SYD ’08 logos
started many conversations with
strangers in the Chicago and Los Angeles
airports and on the 15-hour flight
to Melbourne and another flight to
Sydney.

Arriving there exhausted and excited
at 7 a.m. on Monday, we realized that
we completely missed Sunday because
of the time change. At our very nice
hotel on Bondi Beach, Emily Jansing
and I shared a room for the next week.
On Monday we let our bodies adjust a
little to the new time and place.

As World Youth Day ’08 was officially
starting on Tuesday, we took a bus
and then walked to beautiful Hyde
Park, which contains the magnificent
St. Mary’s Cathedral. In the nearby park
we met other WYD groups, identifiable
by their cute orange-and-red pilgrim
backpacks. This was cool. Most
groups had someone holding their
country’s flag and many people were
smiling, eager to take a picture with
you and learn where you were from.

In fact, one of my favorite parts about
this whole event was having the freedom
of being able to approach anyone
and say hello, ciao (Italian), konichiwa (Japanese) or whatever language you
guessed he or she spoke. Knowing that
I had this freedom throughout the week
led me to realize that, in a world of
culture clashes and disagreements, these
moments were some of the few that I
would ever have where I could truly be
in sync with so many different countries
and cultures so effortlessly.

Our planned tour of St. Mary’s Cathedral
was postponed until the evening,
which didn’t faze us much because we
were completely content with talking
to people and giving out our “swaps”
(little souvenirs from your country that
you trade for other people’s swaps).

We arrived at Barangaroo—basically
a huge parking lot—for the 5 p.m. opening Mass with Cardinal George
Pell. I had time for meat pie that was
delicious—but half-frozen! My friends
and I met many people, especially Filipinos,
Guatemalans and people from
several African countries.

The Filipino groups were very
friendly. Their swaps were bookmarks
showing off their school. Cornell, a
young man from Tanzania, was studying
for an ambassador-like position in
his country. I gave him one of my
swaps. He and his Kenyan friend tried
to teach me some Swahili.

Emily, my friend and roomie, and I
speak a little Spanish and were happy
to meet some Guatemalans. We spoke
Spanish, received the beautifully
braided bracelet swaps they made and
took pictures with them.

The sheer number of people in
Barangaroo was quite impressive. When
Mass began, we watched a liturgical
dance by Aborigines, who lived in Australia
long before the British arrived.
They were really cool to hear and to
see, and were a big part of many of the
World Youth Day events throughout
the week.

The Mass readings were done in
numerous languages including Korean,
Samoan, Tagalog and Portuguese. Cardinal
Pell’s homily focused on opening
your heart to the Holy Spirit and allowing
the Spirit to work through you.
Although our tour of St. Mary’s Cathedral
after Mass was beautiful, we were
glad to be back in our hotel beds
by nine.

The next morning we took a bus to get
to a small neighborhood church called
St. Columba on the outer edge of the
city, which was our assigned catechesis
site. Because it was so far out, we
arrived late but still managed to hear
the majority of the talk given by a
British priest.

We then celebrated Mass with the
two other groups that were there with
us. By the time the catechesis session
was over, it was about 12:30 and we
were late for the next event: a live concert
with a rapping friar. We grabbed
our free lunches to go and walked to the
nearest bus stop.

We walked a lot but finally got to our
destination. We were able to hear the
last couple of songs played by Father
Stan Fortuna, a Franciscan friar from
New York, who liked to play the electric
guitar and rap to his own music. He
was pretty interesting.

But my favorite musician was an
American named Jesse Manibusan, originally
from Guam. Jesse is an amazing
guitarist who told us his life story about
growing up Catholic through songs he
had written and ad-libbing to well-known
songs. He was also quite the
comedian.

On Thursday, we decided to skip our
morning catechesis session because it
took us so long to get there, and instead
tried to find the site at which the official
WYD cross was going to be venerated.
We headed over to Hyde Park
again, but when we found the tent
where the veneration was supposed to
be held, the people there told us that the cross had gotten lost and was probably
with the pope.

A priest was still there so, instead of
letting it get us down, we decided to
have a little prayer service with that
priest and a couple of people who had
gathered with our group.

After that, we decided to go to the
Opera House to stake out our seats for
the arrival of the pope. We sat there for
a couple of hours, mingling with the
groups around us and taking pictures of
the harbor while we waited for the
Holy Father to arrive for the opening
ceremonies.

Our long wait turned out to be
worthwhile as we watched the pope
come in on a big boat flying a variety
of flags. Once Pope Benedict arrived
on shore, he welcomed everyone in
several different languages.

But the most memorable part for me
was when he rode by in his bulletproof
Mercedes popemobile, only a couple
of yards away from where I was standing!
It was truly amazing to be in a
crowd of people all so happy to be so
close to Pope Benedict.

Friday morning we had time to go to
the catechesis site again, where Bishop
Daniel Bowen of Canada celebrated
Mass.

The more interesting part of the day
happened later in the afternoon when
thousands of pilgrims assembled again,
at Barangaroo and other locations, to
watch the reenactment of the Stations of
the Cross, starring Alfio Stutio as Jesus.
With a mixture of acting, singing and
even interpretive dancing, the passion of
Christ was meditated on throughout
Sydney for several hours. I was especially
touched when “Jesus” came
through the street where I could actually
see him, during the eighth station.

My youth group leader, Lori Anne
Fothergill, later pointed out how during
the stations people like us were visibly
moved by what was going on,
while there were other people who were
talking, people who weren’t paying
attention, police officers (for the actors’
sakes, I’m sure) and people who were
only there because it was their job. It
makes for a very good parallel to how
things probably were at the time when
Jesus actually walked through the
streets carrying his heavy cross.

Saturday morning we took a small break
from the WYD festivities and had some
fun being tourists at Paddy’s Market, a
shop with a bunch of good deals. After
we finished our shopping, we gathered
everything we would need for the rest
of the day, night and the day after so
that we would be prepared for an overnight
at Royal Randwick Racecourse
for the Saturday night vigil and the
Sunday morning closing Mass.

The walk to Randwick was about 10
kilometers and included walking over
the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It was so
neat to be walking that long distance in
a crowd of so many people.

We also took time to stop at “power
stations” along the way, which consisted
of praying different prayers from
our liturgy books about the different
gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Although we had left relatively early, we still didn’t get to the track until
about dinner time when it was starting
to get dark, so we ended up setting up
our stuff on the outskirts of the circle
of the track where it was a little colder.

A couple of hours after we arrived,
the vigil started with a beautiful chant.
It lasted for about an hour and a half,
and since it was very dark by this time,
everyone had candles lit and was bundled
up in whatever clothes they had.
In Sydney, it was extremely cold once
the sun went down!

After the prayer service, a really great
band played some music, during which
my friends and I went around looking
for other people we had met, dancing
to some extremely spirited music as we
walked (it helped keep us warm, too!).
We met up with a couple of people,
and then went back to the rest of the
group.

Huddled up next to each other, we
tried to sleep beneath the few blankets
we had had room to pack. Then we
covered those with the “thermal blankets”
we had been given, which felt
like pieces of aluminum foil.

Unfortunately, after about an hour or
two of shivering and half-sleeping, one
of my friends and I decided it was just
too cold to be lying on the ground,
much less sleeping. So at about four in
the morning, we decided to get up and
walk around.

The wind was biting so we took
refuge in the one place nearby that was
enclosed by tall walls and a roof—the
bathroom stalls. It might sound a little
disgusting, but that just shows how
desperate we were for warmth! Actually,
it didn’t even smell very bad because,
luckily for us, the Australian government
had special sewer systems put in
just to accommodate WYD SYD ’08.

After we left our warm shelter, we
continued to walk around the racetrack,
talking to an Aussie or two and
even buying a volunteer hot chocolate
in gratitude for his service to us. The
sun came up around 7:30 and shortly
after that we had Morning Prayer.

The pope came by again in his popemobile,
and I was lucky to be just as
close to him the second time as I had
been the first! We then got to hear him
say the closing Mass which lasted about
three hours, during which several people
were confirmed.

After the Mass, everyone started to
file out of the stadium. As we tiredly
walked through the streets to get to
our bus stop, it was hard to accept that
WYD SYD ’08 was actually over. It was
nice to know, however, that we would
soon be back at our hotel where we
could all shower and rest up before
dinner.

After eating a formal meal at the
hotel, everyone who wasn’t too tired
went out for gelato (like ice cream) and
then zonked out upon returning to our
rooms.

Looking back on the week that I spent
in Sydney, with the thousands of
Catholics from all over the world, I feel
very blessed and lucky that I was given
the opportunity to be there during all
of those festivities.

I know I will always remember everyone
I met from around the world and
will treasure every little swap that I was
given.

Seeing the pope in person was a
unique experience that I may never get
to do again in my life. I wish every
young person could have the chance of
seeing firsthand what I saw. It has given
me a better sense of who I am in relation
to the global community and my
local one. I see people and world events
differently now.

I think the documentation of my
trip, along with all of the pictures I
took, has let even more people experience
World Youth Day. It has shown me
how God can use me as an instrument
to get to other people as well. In that
respect, I am doing as the pope asks by
letting the Holy Spirit work through
me, even as I wrote this article describing
how God has touched my life
through the holy events of World Youth
Day 2008, an experience that I will
always treasure.

IN THE FALL of 2006, Lori Anne
Fothergill, our youth minister
at St. Michael in Sharonville,
Ohio, talked about World Youth
Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia. It
sounded interesting, but I’m
already a busy girl. Besides,
spending the next two years raising the
$4,000 apiece was a bit overwhelming.
But I soon realized this was an amazing
opportunity.

Donations from family and friends raised about $1,000. Babysitting
money and money from my parents gave me another $1,000. I made
a Christmas CD (singing and even playing some guitar) and sold it at
my parish and at school for a donation of $10; that brought in over
$1,000! Our group projects netted another $1,000 apiece, giving me the
$4,000 needed for this pilgrimage.

My traveling companions and other people I met at World Youth Day
have similar stories about fund-raising. We invited our communities
to join us in solidarity in Sydney, and we prayed for all.

Maria Zarick is a senior at Mt. Notre Dame High
School in Reading, Ohio. Her interests include singing,
playing the piano and helping out in various service
activities. After graduation she hopes to pursue
a career in music, possibly music therapy. Going to
Australia was her first trip outside the United States.